The Museum of the African Diaspora’s Afropolitan Ball on Saturday, Oct. 28, raised more than a million bucks, which more than met the monetary goal of this all-out swanky party. But there sure was a larger purpose: “Together,” said the inside of the program for the “Shades of Black” party, “we will keep black art and culture in our city.”

If it seems there are fewer and fewer blacks in San Francisco, this was an occasion for the city’s most prominent members of that community — including Willie Brown, honorary co-chairman of the event with Lloyd Dean of Dignity Health — to put on their best duds, party with old pals and confirm their place in the city’s cultural mosaic. “This is more black people together than you usually see,” said one woman. “People like to see each other,” especially in black tie and silver-beaded gown, which was what she was wearing.

They also like to pitch in. The event, chaired by Monetta White and David Lawrence of 1300 Fillmore, along with Eric Reed and Michelle Miller Reed, was sold out, with the lowest ticket price at $1,000. Event designer Riccardo Benivades had turned the Grand Ballroom of the Fairmont into a glimmering pink-and-purple-lit club. This event, said Brown (not known for understatement), “is the most spectacular one that I have ever seen.”

Among the MoAD artists present: Erica Deeman, Mildred Howard, Lava Thomas, Richard Mayhew, Kenyatta Hinkle, Lewis Watts. Los Angeles-based Betye Saar was honored for lifetime achievement, and Fred Blackwell of the San Francisco Foundation was honored for being a “visionary leader in philanthropy.” The speeches and fund-a-need pitch were the meat and potatoes of a program that began with Hiplet, a Chicago troupe of hip-hop dancers who perform en pointe, and ended with ... well, the party part.

At the sound of the Paris-based DORA Live Band, the guests, having sat at their tables and listened and contributed and applauded as well-behaved fundraising attendees do, exploded onto the dance floor. Speeches, fundraising (and, in my case, note-taking), all well and good. But it was on that crowded dance floor that the good times got rolling.

P.S.: At the reception before dinner, Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard Tyson was congratulated on the HMO’s role in co-sponsoring the Thursday, Nov. 9, Band Together Bay Area benefit concert for victims of the recent fires. Noting that 48 percent of the residents of Santa Rosa and Napa are Kaiser patients, and that in 1990 he was administrator of the Kaiser hospital in Santa Rosa, Tyson was bursting with pride over the staff having evacuated the patients there immediately upon realizing the fires were approaching. People had been asking him, he said, “‘When did I make that decision?’ I never made that decision.” Staff, he said, acted on their own, promptly and heroically. “We had 200 employees, managers and physicians who lost their homes,” he said. “They never stopped working.”

More from Leah Garchik

•Responding to the reader who noted last week that under the current administration’s guidelines — or lack of them — the Marin headlands might become home to coal mines, James Brzezinski has another “mixed use” suggestion: Yosemite National Park & Quarry. Others?

•At the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market, Catherine Luciano was watching a woman accept change for her purchase from a young man. “Thank you, sir,” she told him. “You don’t have to call me sir,” he said. She looked horrified. “Oh, I am so sorry,” she said. “I’m not from here. Thank you, ma’am.”

•The Strand, where “Small Mouth Sounds” is playing, has a long history as a movie theater that includes a stint as a porno house. Perhaps this is in keeping with tradition: “Now that it is part of the new mid-Market restoration,” emails Joe Mac, “A.C.T. is presenting a play with full frontal nudity.”

•As to the Salesforce Tower — remember, we used to complain about the Transamerica Pyramid, but it’s become a beloved part of the skyline — Karen Strauss was driving across the Bay Bridge on Monday morning, and glimpsed what she said was the perfect view, “completely obscured by fog.” Meanwhile, Tom Adams calls it Coit Tower 2.0.